Subjective trust

From TrustLet, a free, collaborative project for collecting and analyzing information about trust metrics.

Subjective trust is just the normal state of trust, since trust is always subjective: Alice is free to trust Bob at every level (for example full trust) just as Carol is free to trust Bob at every level (for example full distrust). In this case this concept would be better called simply "trust".

An example that shows how trust is inherently subjective is the following: "what is your trust level on George W. Bush?". It is self-evident that different people will express different trust statements in George W. Bush and none of them are wrong or malicious, they are simply subjective opinions coming from legitimate different believes. The fact that trust is subjective is in fact particularly evident on controversial users.

Subjective trust is sometimes used in opposition to objective trust, even if there is no "objective trust" by definition and so objective trust would be better called reputation or global reputation.

[edit] Example of 2 trusters expressing different trust in the same trustee